


to the bright Sun in zeal

by goldheart



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Anxiety, Double agents everywhere, Established Relationship, M/M, Panic Attacks, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Red Scare galore, Trans Yuri Plisetsky, Viktuuri Big Bang 2017, Viktuuri Reverse Bang 2017, Winter Soldier AU, Yuuri's hella smart so, a horrible mishmash of MCU and comic canon, author plays fast and loose with Marvel canon, but hey, deadnaming, it's a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-11-22 17:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11384754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheart/pseuds/goldheart
Summary: Yuuri feels the blood out of his face, drained away from him in one go.‘How did you know?’ Carter presses.‘How the fuck do you think I know?’ Yuri snaps. Then belatedly, at the no-nonsense look on her face, he adds a meek, ‘Ma’am.’ A breath. ‘I remember the Asset. Dark hair, square jaw. He spoke two words, maybe, but his Russian was foreign. Raw on his tongue.’ Yuri swallows. ‘This one I knew better. KGB. He trained me in the Red Room, don't you remember? When I was still… He was kind to me, which was really fucking stupid of him because it made me soft.’ He spits the word like it’s an insult. ‘Director, I’d recognise that stupid silver hair a mile away.’(In which a replacement for the Winter Soldier is needed, and Katsuki Yuuri is a persistent little shit.)





	1. Prologue: When Wolves Arrive

**Author's Note:**

> Good lord, this one was challenging. Worth the fight, though! Beta'd by the fabulous and amazing [Kiraly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraly/pseuds/Kiraly) who acted on short notice. Art by [ViktorKatsuki](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11386752/chapters/25497636).
> 
> Chapter titles come from this poem, which Viktor references in the prologue: [The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights](https://russian-crafts.com/russian-folk-tales/tale-about-dead-princess.html) by A. Pushkin.
> 
> Extensive knowledge of the MCU isn't needed to understand this fic! If you've read the plot summary of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, you're solid.

A bullet whistles through air with a sort of music to it, Viktor thinks. Too fast and brief to truly appreciate how beautiful it is, how mankind has found a way to catapult hot metal so quickly to execute a kill so gracefully. Many would say that a gun is a weapon for a brute, but Viktor would beg to differ; there’s something elegant about a rifle and the hunt that goes with it. The focus of the scope on a target, the breath before the pull: One, two, hold the third, fire.

‘He is very good,’ Viktor hears someone remark. ‘Almost as good as the Asset.’

Viktor doesn't know what that means. He’s used to not knowing what certain phrases and keywords mean; he is not the top of the command chain in any sense. He does his duty for his country and he reaps the benefits of it in the thrill, the victory in every mission where he comes back alive, his blood still singing with adrenaline. 

‘He trained some of the Widows,’ another voice offers. At that, Viktor tilts his head away from the scope just a little. It is against his training to eavesdrop at the expense of concentration, but there’s a mischievous side to him that the war and its consequences never crushed. ‘He’s very persuasive. Flirtatious. Lighthearted. But fragile.’ 

Fragile?

Viktor wonders if they know he is connected to their radio frequency. He wonders why he does not recognise these voices, as they are not the familiar gruff comments of Colonel Feltsman, the dulcet but razor-sharp command of Major Baranovskaya. He wonders why this mission is so bare-bones, and he wonders why they yanked him from America to deal with something so small. 

He wonders, but he says nothing. 

There is home to think about. There’s a touch of irony to that, considering San Francisco his home. Perhaps more than a touch. The Americans’ disdain for every little silvery hair on his head to his little piggy toe on each foot and every particle in between sits heavy in the air like humidity, sharpening to needlepoints with every suspicious glare the moment he opens his mouth. How he gets odd looks from his neighbours, who shut their windows at night and draw the blinds shut. Just in case, Viktor thinks, and, well. He hates it, people judging him for what he sounds like instead of what he has to say. 

Which is silly of him because they’re right, of course. But they don’t know that. 

It’s not that he likes San Francisco. Or that he particularly likes the people in it. No, no, it’s just one person. One kind, shy, beautiful man with a laugh that could light up the night sky and a sparkle to his eyes that makes Viktor consider believing in God. 

They told Viktor that his performance levels had spiked to all-time highs then, and Viktor believed it. Before Yuuri, Viktor had felt unmoored from reality, nothing more than the gun at the end of an arm and a pretty face when called for. 

‘Can we afford to remove him from the field?’ the second voice continues as Viktor unscrews the muffler from the end of his rifle. He dismantles his gun with the ease of someone who has done it for years, eyes darting out to the red spreading in the white snow.  _ Mertvoy Printsesse,  _ he thinks of the sight.  _ The Dead Princess and the Seven Knights.  _

‘No,’ the first answers. ‘But we couldn’t afford to lose the Asset, either.’ 

Viktor pauses, his hand inside the duffel bag. 

He’s heard that somewhere before, now that he thinks about it a little harder. 

The bag zips up with a noise that bounces off the walls of the stairwell. Without it, the air suddenly seems too silent. The snow, perhaps. But usually there is some indication of life around him. He has been trained to notice things like that. Movement. Breathing. The presence of… anything. 

No one but him and the woman in the snow below. 

Something about that triggers a warning that sends Viktor to his feet, hyper-aware of the handgun under his jacket and the knives hidden all over his body. His footsteps, his breath, his heartbeat; nothing else. 

‘Very well,’ the second voice says finally. Viktor pauses. ‘You may have him. Hail HYDRA.’

‘Hail HYDRA,’ the other man returns, and the line goes dead. 

It doesn’t register, at first. It’s just code, something a little out of the ordinary, things that Viktor thinks he should know but doesn’t. He’d learned to tamp down on that frustration a long time ago and hide it behind brilliant smiles and coy winks. But there’s no one here with him now, no reason to fake ignorance like a good soldier and wait until his orders were given in no uncertain terms. 

But he knows those words. 

Where do those words come from? 

It hits him like a sledgehammer to the head, right around the same moment when he realises, for once, that he is no longer the hunter. The duffel bag thuds softly when it hits the ground and Viktor can see the shadows of people under the door, now, revealed by the moonlight. 

The cold sets into his lungs as he bursts outside, slamming the metal door into the man on the other side with a harsh clang. His mind shifts away from all errant thought and straight to combat as he rams a knife into someone’s throat and takes out another with a point-blank shot to the head, leaping over the fallen bodies and sprinting for cover. Someone shoots and misses by a long shot; he’d cluck at them in disappointment if they weren’t trying to.

To. 

The Asset, he thinks. The Asset. Replace the Asset. How do you replace the Asset? Because he remembers very clearly now, like the memory had been hidden from him and was only now allowing him to see it. How do you replace the Asset?

You find someone similar and you fix them to fit the role.

Viktor Nikiforov is not scared of death. He’s lived too long bathed in the blood of the dead by his hand to not understand that life is meant to be temporary. He knows that the noblest way to die is to die fighting for his country. He is not afraid of that. 

But he thinks of the heavenly smells wafting in from the kitchen and dancing in the living room, a head pressed into his shoulder and fingers tangling with his when other people can’t see. The tears he wipes away from big, brown eyes, the embraces that leave him buzzing with warmth afterwards. 

He is  _ terrified _ of losing that. 

Is that what they mean by fragile?

He stops thinking about it for just a moment. It’s just his feet on the snow, the report of his gun, the death-screams of men who think they are prepared to die but do not expect the pain of it. 

He runs out of bullets. Rams the butt of the gun into an agent’s head and watches him crumble. Buries another knife in a second’s left eye. Ducks to avoid the swing of a baton and snaps a leg under his heel. He has no time for compassion, no heart left to him when the threat of everything being ripped away from his hands looms like a guillotine as he flees. 

Attachment breeds weakness, they used to preach to the others. They thought he was beyond that and he was, once. Efficient. Strong. Precise. Deadly. But he was also listless, drifting through life with only the next mission on his mind and the joy of existence slowly leaking out of him from the cracks spider-webbing over his skin. 

Weakness buys him time and the satisfaction of watching HYDRA agents die in his wake. Weakness gives him something to mourn when they finally catch him with a bullet in his thigh and fifteen men with large guns trained on his back. Weakness leaves him violent and desperate where he should be complacent. 

_ Yuuri,  _ he thinks, prays, begs. Everything else fades away. There is only Yuuri, now, and Yuuri always. 

And then there is nothing at all. 


	2. Vigil Unabated

Yuuri remembers the first time he saw Viktor Nikiforov as clearly as the first time he saw the San Francisco skyline. The experiences, he thinks, were very similar. Overwhelming. Grand. Dazzling. Like daring to look straight at the sun. 

Except he’d stared into the sunbeams of Viktor’s smile for nearly a year, and everyone with half a brain knows that doing that will blind a man. 

Yuuri should have listened. 

Without Viktor, his vision is scorched. He is blind to brightness and beauty and the promise of a life away from the outside world. The colours of the world seem muted, now. Like clay, maybe, or cement crumbling in the light of the harsh sun. 

A pan clatters to the ground behind him and he nearly jumps high enough to hit his head on the ceiling. 

‘He’s alive,’ Mari says blandly, and scoops it back onto its hook by the stove. 

Yuuri offers her a meek smile he hopes looks reassuring and goes back to rinsing out the dishes. 

He remembers this life. This life came from Before, when San Francisco was cruel to little Japanese boys and threatened to crush them under-heel like bugs. Where it was easier to hide in the back of the restaurant among the smell of fry oil and fish from the Wharf and the sound of people chatting in the dining room. Where  _ Ka-chan  _ handed him a book of puzzles and he solved them all while the world raged around him and he grew and grew until the puzzle book and the little kitchen were too small for Katsuki Yuuri and the little Japanese boy thought he could handle the cruel world by himself. 

Mari presses an extra-large bowl of  _ Ka-chan’s  _ katsudon into his hands and he stares at it for a moment too long before she sighs and gives him a little shove. Sheepishly, he takes it to the diner waiting for it and smiles. This, he learned from Viktor too. 

He finds Viktor in everything. The man on the Wharf with silver hair, thirty years Viktor’s senior but easily mistaken from the back. The way Mrs. Giacometti’s son laughs, carefree and flirtatious and with reckless abandon. The katsudon sitting in front of the patron, carrying with it memories of merciless teasing and praise. 

It is easy to mistake him for a grieving friend. 

‘He’s not dead,’ Mari points out. 

‘Mari!’ Phichit smacks her with his towel. 

‘What? It’s true.’ Mari shrugs and strikes a match against the brick wall outside before lighting her cigarette. ‘He ran away, like all cowardly men do.’ She lowers her voice.  「彼のような男は私の兄弟には合っていません。」

Phichit scrunches his nose at her in confusion, but Yuuri understands it perfectly.  _ A man like him is not fit for my brother.  _ Fragile Yuuri, who panics when strangers get too verbally aggressive, who forgets that he went to college and is far more than the family waiter he plays. Whom Mari thinks shines like the stars. 

Mari knows about Viktor. Phichit knows about Viktor. Yuuri thinks Mrs. Giacometti’s son knows about Viktor, the way he winks at Yuuri. But that’s it. That’s all Yuuri can afford, when he and Viktor are suspect for being alive, anyways—Viktor when he opens his mouth without the acting, Yuuri before he says a word. It’s enough to break a man down into the meagre sum of all his parts so they can grind them into the dirt. 

And he let it happen, in the beginning. He grieved quietly and turned his face to the ground when the world whispered about the silver-haired charmer who broke hearts left and right and finally skipped town. For the other whispers about the Soviet spy the neighbours all thought he was, even before they heard his accent, about what he must have stolen from them to spirit away back to Moscow. About the close friend he’d left behind, the quiet Japanese boy, who was equally a victim and an accomplice to all the wrong in the world. 

‘Yuuri,’ Mari says as they’re closing up for the night,  _ Ka-chan and Na-chan  _ packaging up vegetables and stock for the fridge behind them. ‘Yuuko-san stopped by.’

Yuuri’s mouth twists slightly. ‘Please tell her I’m fine.’ Then, quickly, ‘Thank you, but really. I’m okay.’ Poker-face smile. 

Mari purses her lips. ‘We know.’ Which means,  _ We know the truth.  _

Yuuri turns his eyes to the ground again and feels her pity wash over him like the ocean. 

~

The thing is, Yuuri is grieving. The world is still bleached of colour. But Yuuri has never, ever let depression and grief stop him before. It’s easy to trick the world into thinking that you are a weak man by doing anything out of the ordinary. People hate that. Yuuri hates it, too. But he hates it far less than feeling useless, and if a broken Katsuki Yuuri is what he needs to be to get things done, then that is what he will be. 

Because he and Viktor were just the too-friendly pair of bachelors who lived on the third floor of the apartment building down by the Wharf, right? Cosy dinners by the windows, reading on the shared couch, polite goodnights while handsome Viktor went out on the town and meek Yuuri stayed behind to work from home. 

Yuuri pushes open the door to that too-empty apartment and is greeted with stacks of papers, old photographs and lines of code spread in sheets across the coffee table. He locks the door behind him. 

Katsuki Yuuri is not stupid. 

_ Life in America is dangerous for people like us, Na-chan _ had whispered to his children once upon a time. Old Kempeitai, he’d meant. People brought up at the feet of espionage and war. So  _ Ka-chan  _ had given Yuuri puzzle books, and from them Yuuri had learned Vigenere, how to write and read Vernam. Ciphers. And then, when he was past that,  _ Na-chan  _ showed him how to listen in on secret channels and conversations, what to do if the Katsukis’ past from the war comes back to bite them. Smile at the customers.  _ You can never be too careful.  _

How to act. 

How to search. 

How to fight. 

Yuuri shuts the blinds and pours himself a drink. The sofa creaks when he sits on the edge of it and sets his tumbler on top of the pages and pages of carefully scripted Cyrillic. 

~

_ A kiss. His breaths, thick with exhaustion and contentment. His heart thrumming in his chest, Yuuri’s ear pressed up against it. His hand, long fingers splayed wide over Yuuri’s back, holding him close.  _

_ Yuuri’s heart beating out the same rhythm, but for entirely different reasons.  _

_ Deep breath. Press his shaking hands into the mattress. Curl an arm around Victor, shape his lips, force the words out.  _

_ ‘You’re a spy,’ he whispers. _

_ Victor doesn’t react at all. Or maybe he does, and the too-fast thud-thud-thud of his heartbeat isn’t from what they just did at all. Maybe he’s scared. Maybe not. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he didn’t hear.  _

_ Yuuri looks up at him and sees blue eyes like glass, sharp around the edges and glittering with… something. Fear? Anger? Confusion?  _

_ ‘You’re a spy,’ Yuuri repeats. It’s more real to say it again. It grounds the fact. Gives it substance.  _

_ Victor says nothing. Is that accusation? Indignation? Hurt? It’s a serious thing, to accuse anyone of being a spy. If Yuuri is wrong, he has committed a grave sin by daring to say the words at all. But he will not be brushed under the rug if he is right.  _

_ He knows he is right.  _

_ Carefully, deliberately, Yuuri tightens his grip around Victor’s torso and presses his lips to the place where Victor’s heart beats out a too-fast tattoo.  _

_ ‘Sleep, love,’ Victor says. ‘It’s been a long day.’ _

_ That’s just it, Yuuri realises. Victor can’t bring himself to lie directly to Yuuri’s face. There’s no confirmation in that and no denial.  _

_ ‘Я люблю тебя,’ Yuuri whispers, and Victor’s breath catches. ‘Я буду следовать за тобой куда угодно.’ _

I love you. I'll follow you anywhere.

_ ‘Where did you learn that?’ Victor asks quietly, and ah. There it is. The soft curl of an accent, low and buttery and wavering just a little. Victor wears his heart on his sleeve. Yuuri thinks that Victor must find it hard to cover it up in these moments, right after Yuuri has stripped him bare and attacked him when he is weakest.  _

_ ‘I listen well,’ Yuuri says. Pushes himself up a little. Tilts his mouth towards Victor’s ear.  _

_ ‘I know you, Viktor Nikiforov.’ _

_ ~ _

Stacks of paper. Pens running out of ink, breaking under his grip. A picture: Viktor, smiling like the sun, gleaming like the moon. His arm thrown around Yuuri’s shoulders. The Bay glittering in the background. Not pictured: Yuuri’s hand, slipped into Viktor’s back pocket. The gold rings on chains around their necks, tucked beneath their collars. The gun in Viktor’s coat pocket. The knives in Yuuri’s boots. 

‘I know you, Viktor Nikiforov,’ Yuuri whispers. ‘I know you.’

Viktor Nikiforov was Katsuki Yuuri’s salvation. A bright light in the darkness, shimmering and enticing and inviting. A balm for the psychological injuries inflicted by bigots and paranoid citizens. A god who could have abandoned him the moment Yuuri exposed him for what he was, but chose to stay instead, to love Yuuri and to treat him as an equal. A partner. A student. A teacher. Steady hands on Yuuri’s wrists, helping him aim a gun. Yuuri’s puzzle books in both Japanese and English, spread out for Viktor to learn one page at a time. Dual missions, dual acting jobs. Two sides of the same coin. 

Victor Freeman is a man of many charms. A delightful friend with whom to converse over coffee. A man whose fashion sense leaves nothing to be desired, sharp and crisp and elegant all at once. A smile to make ladies fan themselves and titter in the corner when they think he can’t hear. People trust Victor and they fear him.

Trusted. Feared. Past tense. Four months is enough time to start using the past tense for someone who was there and isn’t anymore, right? 

‘He left his best friend without a word,’ they say now, where they think Yuuri can’t hear. ‘Poor man. All alone.’

‘Alone. Isn’t that suspicious? Never comes out to dinners. Never says hello to his neighbours. Only walks back and forth from his parents’ restaurant, sometimes to the market.’ 

~

_ Laughter. Locked doors. A quick kiss to his temple, then Viktor pulls the newspaper from inside his jacket. Scans the third page, right above the caption. Frowns. Tosses the whole thing in the fireplace. Lights a cigarette and flicks the match into the paper.  _

_ ‘I have to go,’ he murmurs as Yuuri drifts towards sleep in their bed.  _

_ ‘How long?’ Yuuri asks.  _

_ ‘Too long.’ Viktor pauses. ‘Two weeks at most. No more. I promise.’ _

_ ‘You promise a lot, Vitya,’ Yuuri says sleepily.  _

_ ‘I know. I mean it, though.’ Viktor nuzzles into Yuuri’s neck and Yuuri laughs. Pushes his head away, because it tickles. ‘Any longer and I’ll die, Yuuri. I have to be with you. See you. Hear your voice.’ _

_ ‘And you have to go.’ Yuuri sighs. ‘When?’ _

_ ‘Before you wake up.’  _

_ ‘I’ll wake up.’ _

_ ‘You won’t.’ Viktor smiles charmingly. ‘Five dollars says you won’t.’ _

_ ‘You make dinner when you come home,’ Yuuri counters.  _

_ ‘You make dinner when I come home,’ Viktor says with certainty, and nuzzles back into Yuuri again. Yuuri doesn’t push him away this time. The smile slips from his face.  _

_ ‘Be safe. Come home–’  _

_ ‘I will,’ Viktor says with certainty.  _

_ ‘–and if you don’t,’ Yuuri barrels on, ‘I’ll hunt you down. Tie you up if I have to and drag you all the way back across the ocean.’ _

_ Viktor laughs.  _

_ ‘I don’t doubt it,’ he says. Yuuri thinks he can see the hearts in Viktor’s eyes. Silly man. ‘Я буду следовать за тобой куда угодно.’ _

_ ‘Я буду следовать за тобой куда угодно,’ Yuuri repeats.  _

~

Yuuri throws his pen across the room and watches its ink splatter against the carpet. His hands are shaking, vision blurring. Breaths too shallow.  _ Panic.  _

He’s out the door before it fully registers in his head that he’s moving, yanking his coat on over his sleeves and nearly tripping going down the stairs while he pulls his shoes on. The crisp air hits his lungs like a punch and he gasps, throwing out a hand to steady himself on the wall. It’s late. Too late for nosy neighbours to give him disapproving looks and whisper. He slides down the wall and puts his head between his knees and just tries to  _ breathe  _ properly again. 

It happens, eventually. He stops feeling like he has to claw his skin off to escape, like his own lungs will suffocate themselves and the relentless, raw fear of failure finally seems to ease off his heart. His tears are hot on his face now, burning with anger and disappointment. He is failing, and terror when faced with it doesn’t stop him from hitting a wall with every trail he tries to follow. 

What must they think of him, his family?  _ I am sorry for disappointing you.  _

Deep breath. He wipes his face on his sleeve and clears his glasses on the hem of his shirt. He thought he was so close this time, too. Chasing radio communications, intercepting intel passed onto the KGB by amateur spies who can't cover their tracks, cracking them apart and picking at the shards—this is what Yuuri has been doing. But they never talk about Viktor anymore. 

They used to talk about him all the time. 

Yuuri doesn't know why he keeps listening in. This is how things work. When an agent dies, he is mourned and forgotten in favour of the cause. When he disappears, they search a little while and give up wasting resources when he is not easily found. He is replaced. 

But something doesn't match up. They never talk about him because they actively avoid talking about him. All his missions are nonexistent in files, now. They haven't replaced him. 

_ He’s dead.  _

_ He can't be.  _

_ He’s dead.  _

_ Why haven't they replaced him, then? _

Yuuri pushes himself to his feet and walks. 

There’s something that he’s missing. Something the Soviets know but are not talking about. Men disappear all the time, but if someone like Viktor dies? 

It’s like Captain America disappearing into the ocean, but with only the military to remember him. No one goes without mentioning something. 

Yuuri understands how insignificant everything he’s doing really is. He knows that. He’s not stupid. It’s like throwing a pebble into the ocean and waiting for the ripples to turn into waves. Like trying to find a needle in a haystack after it’s already rusted and crumbled away to nothing. But what else is he going to do? 

The docks are thrumming with night life once he gets there. It’s comforting. Terrifying. It distracts from his uselessness, having to watch his back while he breathes in the sea breeze, and so he wanders. 

Yuuri watches two figures hunched over by the edge of the water for a moment. They’re whispering. The shorter one gesticulates wildly, leaning forward in a sharp, aggressive line. The other one laughs mockingly and jabs at the smaller one’s chest, which makes him cringe away. 

‘Back the fuck up, candyass,’ the small one spits. 

Yuuri blinks and suddenly the smaller one is falling. He makes a pained noise as he goes down, but it’s oddly high-pitched and childlike. That gets Yuuri to move. 

‘Hey!’ he says sharply. The other man looks up right as Yuuri jams the heel of his palm under his chin and knees him in the stomach. Yuuri ducks when the fist comes his way, elbowing the man in the face when he comes back up. As the man trips, Yuuri grabs him, keeping him from falling into the Wharf. He glares and lets him go. The man spits blood at his feet and flees. 

It all happened so quickly. Nothing quite registers until the man is far out of sight and the man–the  _ kid– _ on the ground is back on his feet, his cheekbone red where the man’s fist had connected with it. The sight of it snaps Yuuri out of it and sends him reeling, gasping with the shock of it. 

_ ‘Hit me,’ Viktor says.  _

_ Yuuri feels the blood drain from his face. ‘What?’ _

_ ‘Hit me,’ Viktor repeats. He widens his stance a little and smiles. _

_ ‘I’m n-not going to hit you,’ Yuuri protests, pressing his hands together so hard that his knuckles turn white.  _

_ ‘Yuuuuri,’ Viktor says impatiently, drawing out Yuuri’s name. ‘Come on. You won’t hurt me. Just try.’ _

_ ‘I don’t want to hit you!’ Yuuri snaps. Then realises what he just did and claps his hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to yell at you like that!’ _

_ Viktor hums, tapping his lip for a moment. Then his eyes sharpen. ‘Your  _ mama’s  _ katsudon is disgusting,’ he says finally. ‘So fatty and tough and soggy! I would rather eat a tyre.’ _

_ Yuuri hits him before he can think about it and Viktor’s sprawled on the ground in a pile. For a moment, he stays down, blinking up at the ceiling. He touches his cheek delicately as he sits up. ‘Ow?’ _

_ ‘Oh my god,’ Yuuri squeaks, mortified.  _

_ ‘You didn’t hold back at all,’ Viktor says. He sounds almost… admiring? ‘Wow.’ He gazes up at Yuuri, his eyes glittering. ‘I love you. Amazing.’ _

_ Yuuri makes another embarrassing noise and fumbles to help Viktor and— _

‘I had that, dammit,’ the kid snaps, and Yuuri gasps, tugged back to the moment. His knuckles sting from the salt in the air and his eyes are too wet. ‘Mind your own damned business, okay, hot shot?’

‘He hit you,’ Yuuri points out. His voice wavers a little. 

‘That was part of the plan,’ the kid says sourly. ‘The hell are you doing out here?’ His mouth spreads in a snarl of a smile, all sharp points gleaming in the moonlight. ‘Isn't it a little late for nice boys like you?’ 

‘And not too late for kids like you?’ Yuuri shoots back. The kid narrows his eyes and stalks away. 

‘Ice and heat,’ Yuuri calls after him. ‘Don’t ice it for more than two days!’

The kid slows. ‘The hell do you care?’

Yuuri takes a breath and wipes furiously at his face. It takes a moment for him to look for a reason that might satisfy the boy, something that isn't  _ you look and sound about thirteen and I've seen enough kids getting beaten up to last a lifetime _ , and comes up with nothing. ‘I don't know,’ he says instead. 

The kid stares at him for a moment, eyes sharp like broken glass. Then he scoffs and tugs his coat collar closer, disappearing into the night. 

Yuuri stands there a moment longer. Everything threatens to rise up and consume him: The sting of his split knuckles, the roiling confusing swirling in his stomach, the crash of the water against the docks. He wants to curl up in a ball and try not to suffocate on his panic. He wants to run until his legs give out under him, to hurl himself into the ocean and let all of it drag him down, down, down. 

He does none of that. Instead, he turns around and starts walking home. 

~ 

‘Yuuri,’ Phichit says sharply. Yuuri nearly drops his tray. ‘I’ve been trying to get your attention for a hot minute, gimme that, come on-’

Phichit miraculously wrestles the tray out of Yuuri’s hands without spilling anything, his eyebrows furrowed with concentration. 

‘I’m fine,’ Yuuri protests weakly as Phichit sweeps out around him, depositing meals at tables with remarkable efficiency. Yuuri just watches him, defeated, until he comes back, dusting off his hands with a job well done. 

‘I know you are,’ Phichit says, bumping Yuuri’s shoulder. ‘But I think you’d be better than fine if you found something else to do with your time. You’re miserable here.’ 

Yuuri looks guiltily back at Mari and  _ Ka-chan _ at the stoves, chopping vegetables and pretending like they aren't watching Yuuri. ‘I can't-’

‘I know,’ Phichit interrupts, his voice low. ‘I know, they’re your family and you think you have a duty to stay here and help, but can I be honest with you?’ 

‘We’re friends,’ Yuuri says. 

‘Exactly.’ Phichit takes a deep breath. ‘I love you to pieces, Yuuri, I do. So don't take it wrong when I say you’re not helping anyone by chaining yourself down here.’ 

Yuuri deflates. He knew that. He’s known that for a long, long time. 

‘You were meant for a lot more than hiding away and feeling sorry for yourself,’ Phichit says. ‘I mean. College?’ 

‘Thanks for the reminder,’ Yuuri mumbles. 

‘That wasn't-’ Phichit cuts off with a distressed groan. ‘Just listen, okay?’ He drops two hands on Yuuri’s shoulders. ‘There’s a whole world out there waiting for you to conquer it, Yuuri Katsuki. Cowering in the kitchen won't help you do it.’ He takes his hands off of Yuuri. ‘I talked to your mom. I've got your shift ‘til the end of the night. Go home, ‘kay? My treat.’ 

Yuuri swallows. ‘Phichit…’

Phichit grins brilliantly. ‘What are friends for, eh?’ 

~

Yuuri stills his hand on the door, the key dangling from the lock. Something’s not right. Call it paranoia, call it instinct, but Yuuri knows there’s someone behind the door. His mind immediately goes to the revolver under the sofa, the knives he’d wished he had the foresight to slip into his boots before he left for the day. But Viktor’s crowd don't bother civilians unless they have something valuable, and Yuuri has nothing at all but smoke and some dead-end paper trails. 

He gathers himself up anyways. If it’s a fight they’re looking for, then Yuuri’s not afraid to chase them out. He counts to three under his breath, building up his bravado and shoving the door open. 

‘You’re really a piece of work, aren't you?’ 

It’s the kid from last night, perched like a bird on the couch as he flips through pages of Yuuri’s work. One of them flutters to the floor as he discards it. In daylight, it’s easier to make out his features: Bright blue eyes, long legs, cornsilk hair cut short and swept to the side with pomade like a boy playing grown-up. Bruise purpling on his cheekbone, creeping up towards his eye. 

‘Any kid with a radio could intercept these messages, but decoding them?’ The kid looks up at Yuuri, his sparkling eyes giving away his interest, contrary to the suspicious twist of his mouth. ‘And you’re a busboy.’ 

‘Waiter,’ Yuuri corrects weakly. 

‘Shut the door,’ the kid says sharply. 

Yuuri shuts the door. 

‘Your parents are ex-military.’ The kid slaps his paper down on the table. ‘They own a restaurant down on the Wharf where you can work and all keep your heads down. Why, so you can do this?’ The boy gestures wildly at Yuuri’s papers before he leaps to his feet, stalking into Yuuri’s face with a snarl like a smile. ‘So tired of being a failure that you have to butt into things you don't understand, huh?’ 

Yuuri stares down at him, hands shaking furiously. But he doesn't move. The kid’s chest is heaving and there’s something wild and desperate in his eyes, something that Yuuri recognises easily. He’s seen that look countless times in the mirror. 

‘I’m looking for him,’ Yuuri says. ‘The man they’ve been avoiding talking about. I’m looking for him.’

‘You’re looking for someone by interpreting messages  _ not  _ about him,’ the kid says dryly. He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘That’s so stupid.’ 

‘What else am I supposed to do?’ Yuuri asks. The kid narrows his eyes but backs down as Yuuri walks past him to set his bag down on the counter. ‘How long have you been here?’ 

‘An hour,’ the kid says sourly. 

‘Did you look around?’ Yuuri doesn't turn back to the kid. His silence is answer enough. ‘You know why I'm looking, then.’ 

Nothing. 

‘Why are you here?’ Yuuri asks. 

The kid is silent for so long that Yuuri turns around to see if he’s still there. And he is; he hasn't moved an inch. He’s just glaring. They look at each other for minutes, days, seconds before the kid finally looks away. 

‘I need somewhere to stay the night,’ he says, and there: The telltale hint of an accent. His eyes come up to burn into Yuuri again. ‘And you helped me already.’ 

‘You’re welcome,’ Yuuri says automatically. The kid blinks at him once before he rolls his eyes and stomps off towards the room Viktor and Yuuri kept for appearance’s sake, pristine and dusty from disuse. The door slams shut. 

Yuuri sits down hard in a chair, dazed. Then the door bangs open again and the kid stalks back out, teeth still bared in a snarl. 

‘I’m hungry,’ he declares. ‘Give me food.’ 

Yuuri tamps down on the urge to respond with something snarky and just gets up to make dinner. 

~ 

The boy devours the katsudon like he hasn't eaten in a week–which, given how skinny he is, might be closer to reality than Yuuri originally thought. 

‘You know a lot,’ Yuuri ventures cautiously. 

The kid shrugs aggressively. ‘That’s my job,’ he says, grains of rice dropping off of his face. Yuuri passes him a napkin. The kid wipes viciously at his face and goes back to eating messily. 

‘Aren't you kind of young for that?’ Yuuri presses further. 

‘I’m eighteen,’ the kid snaps, mouth full. 

‘That’s a lie.’ 

‘It’s not!’ Which means it is. The kid drops his chopsticks on the table with a clatter and jabs a finger at Yuuri across the table. ‘I’ve seen a lot of shit, ‘kay? Things that’d make your ass melt into a quivering puddle of blubbering tears. I’ve done things that’d make a grown man piss his pants. So shut your yap and leave me alone about being young.’

The silence hangs over them for a moment while the kid breathes hard. Yuuri bites his lip and sets his chopsticks down. 

‘How old are you really?’ he asks quietly, and braces himself for an assault that never comes. Instead, the kid deflates. 

‘Fifteen.’ 

‘Okay.’ Yuuri folds his hands under the table. ‘Okay. That’s.’ He swallows. ‘Impressive.’ 

The kid nods once and picks up his chopsticks again, eating with a little more restraint. 

‘My name is Yuuri,’ he tries. The kid’s head snaps up at that. 

‘That’s a fucking joke.’ 

Yuuri frowns. ‘No?’ 

‘You’re shitting me.’ The kid glares. ‘There’s no fucking way. Is this actually a joke? Are you trying to be funny? Because it’s really not fucking funny, asshole.’

Yuuri blinks at him, nonplussed. The kid seems to realise he’s being completely serious, because he backs down almost entirely, looking suddenly very vulnerable. Then he smiles a real smile, half-cautious and guarded but entirely honest. 

‘That’s my name, too.’ 

~ 

Yuri Plisetsky is obviously a Soviet, even before Yuuri finds out what his last name is. The boy lets more and more of his accent slip into his voice until generic Californian gives way to something that reminds Yuuri uncomfortably of Viktor behind closed doors, when he dropped the Freeman persona in favour of himself. He spreads his things out all over Yuuri’s apartment, disturbing piles of work and kicking his feet up onto tables to read, disappearing into the night and coming back with bruised knuckles and sealed lips. One night becomes two, then three, then four, and finally Yuuri gives up and just waves tiredly at the shower in a gesture that Yuri doesn’t even acknowledge as he slams the bathroom door shut behind him. 

‘What are you doing, when you’re out there?’ Yuuri asks when Yuri comes back with a welt across his jaw, hunched over something cradled in his arms. 

‘None of your business,’ Yuri snaps, and stashes whatever it is in his commandeered room. Then he comes back and sulks on the couch for a while, silently glaring out the window into the night while Yuuri sits at the kitchen table and quietly intercepts messages. His pen scratching below lines of gibberish is the only other sound. 

Finally, Yuri gets up and starts setting the table, the silverware dropping against the wood with harsh clatters. Yuuri gives it five more minutes before he gets up to reheat the rice from last night. As the vegetables are sizzling, Yuri pipes up from his sprawl at the table. ‘You don’t really have a spine, do you?’ he asks, and snorts. ‘That’s pathetic.’ 

Yuuri glances up at him. There must be something in his expression that betrays his amusement at that, because he watches the smirk melt off of Yuri’s face in a slow drip. The boy narrows his eyes at Yuuri before he looks down at the silverware in front of him and aggressively straightens it. 

‘Little jobs,’ Yuri says. It takes Yuuri a moment to figure out what he’s talking about, but once he does, he briefly forgets about the vegetables. ‘Whatever my boss needs me to do. Living here, it’s a matter of proving you’re on their side, you know? Every single goddamn day, no matter what they want you to do, you do it, and still they don’t trust you.’ He looks up at Yuuri. ‘You get that, don’t you, pig?’

Yuuri is offended by that for as long as it takes to remember that he’s still cooking. He panics for a moment, jumping for his chopsticks with a cry to stir before the vegetables burn. Yuri’s snickering behind him, like his embarrassment is really enough to keep Yuuri from continuing their conversation, so Yuuri humours him until they’re both seated and served, the steam rising off of the vegetables. 

‘I understand,’ he says after a moment. ‘It’s hard. I was disillusioned with this place for so long.’ 

Yuri’s scowl looks more like a smile he’s trying to hide this time. ‘It’s not as great as everyone made it out to be,’ he says, chewing. 

‘Huh?’ Yuuri frowns. ‘In the USSR?’

Yuri scoffs. ‘No,’ he says. Then considers. ‘Well. Yes. But only because the alternative was giving in.’

‘Giving into what?’ Yuuri presses quietly. 

Yuri doesn’t answer. Yuri doesn’t say anything at all until after they’ve finished and he bumps into Yuuri, hitting the plate away from him. Yuuri reacts quickly, catching it before it can shatter on the ground. He looks at Yuri, wide-eyed. 

‘Huh,’ Yuri says, and smirks. 

~

Days, weeks. Yuuri goes to work with his family and comes back to a grumpy teenager with more unexplained  bruises and cuts, split knuckles and lips sealed so tightly that they turn white, unless it’s to mock Yuuri or hit at him or to immediately translate the occasional intercept so Yuuri doesn’t have to. And for once, it gives Yuuri something to think about other than the messages that lead nowhere, the empty space on the other side of the bed, the sting of that beast in his mind that whispers in the dark of the night that Viktor left because Yuuri is pathetic, pathetic, pathetic—

‘Katsudon,’ Yuri snaps from the couch, curled up with his knees up to his chest and a new bruise layered onto his jaw. ‘Get over yourself for a second and come over here.’

Yuuri looks up and sees the boy glaring at his feet, his teeth gritted so hard Yuuri is worried he’s going to hurt himself more. Then he mutters something unintelligible at his knees. 

Yuuri blinks at him. ‘What?’

‘I need your help with something,’ Yuri mumbles, a little louder.

Yuuri’s not sure if he heard that right. The surly boy glares at him expectantly, hunched over in a curl. Yuuri cautiously walks over, sitting on the other side of the sofa. Yuri looks away. 

Yuuri waits. 

‘Do you have bandages?’ Yuri asks finally. ‘The types for sprains and shit.’ 

Yuuri scans over him, looking for visible injuries but finding none but the bruise on his jaw. Yuri narrows his eyes at him and Yuuri makes up his mind, going to dig for the first aid kit he’d kept well-stocked when… 

Well. 

Wordlessly, Yuuri sets it down on the table and digs for the bandages. He finds the roll under syringes and needles in individual packets. Yuri doesn't comment on the extra supplies, just takes the bandages when offered and unbuttons his shirt quickly, tearing it off. He’s wearing a vest underneath it, but there’s a slash down the centre of it, one that matches the tear that Yuuri can see in the crumpled shirt, now that he’s looking. Alarmed, Yuuri reaches forward to help him, but Yuri just looks down at the vest in disgust and tugs at it, ripping it the rest of the way, and–

Oh. 

Yuuri looks up at Yuri’s face and sees a look of steel in the boy’s—girl’s?—eyes. Wordlessly, Yuri strips off the vest and winds the bandages where it had been, eyes locked on Yuuri’s all the way through. Yuuri doesn't break it, even though he has a million questions, but the shock is enough to keep him silent. 

‘Thanks,’ Yuri says gruffly, tucking the end of the bandage in at the top. Then the kid bends down gracefully to grab the discarded fabric and disappears down the hallway, slamming the door shut behind him hard enough that the Yuuri can hear the glasses in the cabinet shaking. 

~

They don’t talk about it for a week. Yuri suddenly looks less a rebellious teenager and more a hunted animal, watching Yuuri out of the corner of his eyes (and it takes Yuuri some time, but he’s certain now that that is the answer; he’s heard about people like Yuri before, mostly on the tongues of men who think it’s funny to beat down people who don’t fit into their perfect mould… but as far as he’s concerned, the insults they have for someone like Yuri are just as bad as what they call him for being Japanese, what they whispered about him and Viktor when they thought neither could hear). But Yuuri never brings it up except to offer him the vest later, mended by his  _ ka-chan’s  _ careful hand. Yuri takes it from him then with disbelief and distrust, his eyes narrowed to near slits. 

‘Tell me what you do when you go out alone,’ Yuuri says softly, assertively. For once in his life, he has to act like an adult who can stand on his own two feet. 

‘I can’t,’ Yuri says sharply, and there—that’s honest. ‘Don’t waste energy worrying about me, though. Don’t you have other things to focus on?’

Yuuri looks down at his radio and reaches forward to switch it off. The sudden lack of background noise makes the whole room seem quiet. 

‘No,’ he says, and that’s honest too. 

Yuri looks Yuuri up and down for a moment. 

‘How’d you learn to fight?’ he asks. ‘Like you did when we met. Your spy-parents didn’t teach you that.’

Yuuri doesn’t flinch. ‘They did,’ he admits openly. ‘The beginnings, at least.  _ Mari-chan _ and I, they had to teach us how to fight back if someone came for us.’ 

Yuri doesn’t look impressed. Almost immediately, because he can’t help himself, dammit, Yuuri touches the ring under his shirt collar. Yuri’s eyebrows go up. 

‘Really,’ he says quietly. 

They stare at each other a moment longer. Then Yuri reaches into his pocket and tosses something at Yuuri, which he catches reflexively. It’s a little battered, but the symbol on the badge is clear and something he doesn’t recognise. He frowns at the bird and looks up at Yuri. Yuri scrutinises him for a moment longer before he sets something else on the table—a pistol. Shiny, polished to a near fault, and much more menacing a gun than Yuuri had ever seen other than the sniper rifle Viktor used to keep under the floorboards. 

‘Viktor Nikiforov,’ Yuri says, his voice low. Like someone else could hear him through the walls. Like the name itself was cursed. ‘You’d sell your soul to the devil to find him, wouldn’t you?’

Yuuri swallows thickly and can’t bring himself to say no. 

‘What do you know?’ he asks instead.

Yuri loses the hunted look completely. He straightens up and stands perfectly straight—no insecurity about himself at all. His eyes, barbed like cut glass, seem more like steel than something so brittle. Yuuri, for the first time, feels genuine fear looking at him.

‘I crossed a damn ocean to find that asshole,’ Yuri says evenly. ‘And I’m not gonna give up. Not if it means I have to do stupid jobs for people who will never trust me to get the resources. Not if I have to camp out in random sad people’s apartments to set up an alibi.’ He smiles slyly. ‘I gave my body and soul, no holds barred. It’s not just about Viktor anymore.’ 

‘What isn’t?’ Yuuri presses. 

Yuri nods to the badge in Yuuri’s hand. ‘Being a waiter’s not gonna do shit,’ Yuri says fiercely. ‘I have a different job offer for you, Katsuki Yuuri.’

* * *

Floating. Floating. The mist is thick, cloying like sweet perfume. His head hurts with the smell of it. 

Who are you? 

The Asset, he answers, because that is what they tell him. 

Who are you?

Gunfire. Figures dropping like flies. A man’s throat under his hands, the terrified expression of a mother as he levels his gun at her forehead. Death-screams of soldiers who thought they were ready to sacrifice themselves but were oh-so-wrong. 

Who are you?

Fire, they say, and he fires. Obtain, they say, and he does. Eliminate, and they are gone. He has forgotten how to think, how to feel, how to understand that targets are anything other than a job well done. 

Who are you, soldier?

Tears on the target’s face, sobs not like pleading but like he’s furious at the Asset. 

Someone loved you, once, he says. Didn’t they?

Love? The Asset doesn’t understand. 

Nikiforov, the target says. Nikiforov, don’t you remember your family? 

The target dies, but it is too late, because the Asset  _ does.  _

Family is the mother rocking her baby in the windowsill, clueless to the barrel of his rifle and the bullet that will end them both. Family is—

Family is the mama he remembers, stroking his long hair back from his face and wiping his scrapes clean. Vitenka, she murmured deep in the night while the Germans’ guns fired without remorse. Vitenka,  _ lubov moya, _ be our lion, be our hero. 

Family is—

The two girls from the Red Room, their humanity nearly flayed from their backs while he watched and waited. When he whispered kindness to them when no one could hear, because it was Yakov’s kindness beneath his stony face that had shown him how to be great. It is harshness followed by nurture in the littlest ways that earns him their complete loyalty: First Babicheva, brilliant and ruthless, then Plisetskaya, a bright inferno waiting to devour the world. Mila and Yulia. The ones they wanted to be the next Romanovas. Sisters in assassins. 

Family is…

Family is. 

The sun glinting in his hair on sharp winter mornings, all the rest of him buried beneath the covers. Their legs swinging off the Wharf, their bare toes dipping into the sea. Dancing in the living room. Driving up to the mountains to skate in wobbly circles over frozen ponds and shoving him into the snow, laughing, laughing, laughing. 

The scent of his hair. The gleam of his smile. The sounds of his pleasure, the ring of his laughter, the name on his lips. 

Who are you?

Viktor, he whispers in a long-forgotten memory—He, him,  _ Yuuri,  _ life and love incarnate, and yes, he understands, he knows, he remembers. Viktor, Viktor,  _ Vitya.  _

_ Я люблю тебя. Я буду следовать за тобой куда угодно. _

_ No,  _ he—he, him, not the Asset, him, Viktor Nikiforov—pleads.  _ No, don’t, don’t come for me, don’t let them take you! _

Hands on his shoulders, shoving him back, and he’s kicking, they’re dying under his hands, his commanders, his captors, Nazis, the lot of them, but it’s too much, there’s too many of them, and they strap him down and shove a wooden bit in his mouth and then  _ I’m disappointed in you, Soldat. _

_ Don’t let me kill him,  _ he begs.  _ Remember this one thing! Do not harm Yuuri Katsuki on penalty of your life, Nikiforov.  _

And then there is nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Russian that is repeated without translation is the same as the first, which is, 'I love you. I'll follow you anywhere.'


	3. Part Two: Like A Flower Into Bloom

SHIELD is… complicated, in every sense of the word. It is gruelling work. It tugs and pulls at his brain in ways that he thought it couldn’t be pulled, requiring the sharpest of thinking and immediate reactions, sometimes, for cases of life or death. It grinds him into the ground, stripping him of his easily-gained weight and layering sheets of lean muscle over his bones as he runs and jumps and tumbles and chases and flees. It raises him higher than his pessimistic view of the world could have ever expected before it drops him back under the suspicious eyes of the agents he now calls his peers even though it’s been four years and all he’s ever been to them has been loyal. But it is respect, albeit begrudging, because there are some within SHIELD who have never condemned him for the crimes of his homeland.

Yuri, for one. His friend, the witty and wily Agent Babicheva. The fearless Agent de la Iglesia. And, perhaps most confusingly of them all, the woman Yuuri met on his very first day, who carried herself with such quiet dignity and strength that he was left half-stunned when she greeted him in perfect Japanese, a short hug, and a whispered promise to help him in exchange for his aid.

It is nothing Yuuri could have imagined to exist beyond stories of the same calibre as the fantasy of Captain America. But then again, Captain America _was_ SHIELD, once upon a time.

(That still seems false. Like a fairy tale, in the same way that Amaterasu and kitsunes and happiness in America are fairy tales to little Japanese boys.)

~

Agent Babicheva slaps a folder in front of him with a coy smile and a ‘read this.’ He opens it hesitantly to records of every illegal thing he’s ever done, both for his family and with Viktor. Breaking and entering, possession of unlawful weapons, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, forgery, trespassing, theft. Sodomy (he flinches at this one). Murder. Espionage.

‘I haven’t killed anyone,’ he protests weakly, which is an admission to everything else.

Agent Babicheva smiles sweetly. ‘No, but you’re an accessory. He did.’

Yuuri does not flinch again, but he can’t help it; he’s shaking like a leaf. Damn anxiety. ‘What’s the point of this?’

‘You two were quite the Bonnie and Clyde of the decade, weren’t you? Or maybe a real Holmes and Watson. The gentle, pretty bachelors at the end of the street in your sharp suits with your charming smiles and the knives hidden in your boots.’ She flicks the file closed. ‘Relax, Katsuki. He was one of ours.’ There is something mournful behind her flirty smile.

Yuuri straightens.

‘SHIELD’s a big fan of picking up misfits,’ she continues. ‘You, me, Altin, Yulia—’

‘Yuri,’ Yuuri corrects automatically. For that, he earns a genuine smile.

‘My point is, they like their Soviets. And their… _friends,_ apparently. Big on forgiveness, too.’ She slides into the seat across from him. ‘So whaddya say I burn this, you call me Mila, and we do our damndest to try and make them trust us together?’

(It’s easier than he thought to make friends with this crowd.)

~

They eat their meals together in the Hub. It starts with Yuuri by himself, picking apart the meagre rations with a fork, and then there is Yuri, plopping himself down across the table with a scowl and clattering silverware. After Yuuri’s interrogation, Agent Babicheva (Mila, she reminds him again) begins sitting next to Yuri, bumping his shoulder and ruffling his steadily-lengthening hair to his fruitless protests.

(‘I know he told you about it, the Red Room,’ Mila tells Yuuri later. ‘We trained together.’ At his bewildered look, she laughs. ‘For some reason, our little _tigrenok_ trusts you, so I do, too.’)

With no trigger to it at all, another agent slides up next to them in the food line in late March, looking young and fresh-faced and with a boyish smile to match his relaxed demeanor. ‘Leo de la Iglesia,’ he introduces. ‘I’m new—’

‘We can tell,’ Yuri snipes.

‘—and you seem way more chill than that crew.’ He jabs his thumb over his back before examining the chalkboard. ‘So what looks good?’

And in November, a quiet, brooding agent takes a seat at the opposite end of their table, eating quietly by himself. After a week, Yuri joins him without a word, and by the end of the month, they’re back on Yuuri’s end of the table. ‘Altin,’ Mila greets, and he nods back.

Yuuri would ask, but he catches Yuri staring at the quiet agent when he thinks Altin’s not looking, glancing away with a red tint high on his cheekbones. Yuuri leaves it alone.

Someone takes notice of them, this motley crew. Yuuri suspects it is none other than the Director herself; there’s no other explanation for why they’re immediately put on every mission together after that.

~

He wonders if it is all a ploy to get people like him, people like Yuri and Mila and Otabek Altin, to forget their animosity towards the United States. He asks Yuri about this once.

‘If they are, it’s working,’ the agent grumbles, looking sullen but giving his compliance away with the sparkle in his eyes. He snaps a clip back into his pistol and disappears around the corner.

And as much as Yuuri would like to deny it, he’s right: It is working.

This was all about Viktor before. The codebreaking, the training, the fighting, the blood on his knuckles and the scrapes up his knees. The retching behind buildings in the beginning until his soft soul grew a steel shell. The gradually increasing steadiness and accuracy of his aim. He’d never liked guns, but he’d learned for Viktor.

And then, as months of work under Director Carter’s watchful gaze turn to a year, then two, then four, it becomes something else.

There is the mission in the beginning meant to be a simple training exercise that ends with three teenage girls weeping and clinging to him and Leo, pure gratitude radiating off of them like heat. Or the one where a normally inconceivable situation involving a glowing green ball, 27 chickens, and a hysterical Hollywood actress results in Yuuri’s increase in clearance from Level 4 straight to Level 6. The one where he actually finds himself climbing a pole to put the American flag back.

He’s been domesticated. When Mila knocks on the frame of his perpetually open door, a stack of papers in her hands that means another mission, he does not think of Viktor first. Instead, his heart thunders in his chest for the thrill of what’s to come. Later, he thinks of what it means for his standing within SHIELD’s rankings, how each new mission brings him closer to finding out what he can about Viktor.

Because Viktor is still out there. He’s certain of it, even when Yuri himself shows his doubts. It riddles him with guilt when he collapses back on his bunk in the early hours of the morning, always covered with more bruises and scrapes than he’d had when he started the mission, leftover adrenaline coursing through his veins.

‘Obviously it’s not about Viktor anymore,’ Yuri comments when Yuuri brings it up. ‘Only chumps chase after “love” for four goddamned years.’ He mimes quotation marks before he jabs Yuuri in the chest. ‘This is about you. It’s always been about you and what you want. You’ve just decided that what you really want is to make the world better.’ Yuri scoffs. ‘It’s really fucking selfish of you.’

Yuuri ignores the jab, chews on the thought for a while, and supposes that Yuri is right. He does what he does because the gratitude from those girls, the tremor in his hands when Director Carter announced his promotion, the applause when he slid back down the flagpole, fill him with pride he’d never, ever admit to having. There is satisfaction in serving this country that has reluctantly welcomed him into its folds, despite his past.

And so, with the determination of his parents before him (and a quiet, fervent prayer of apology), he does his job.

~

It starts like this:

A US ambassador requires safe transport around Moscow for a meeting with the Kremlin. As a personal favor, he calls on the Director for an escort party.

In London, reports of an 0-8-4 make their way back to the Hub. It’s fragile and requires agents of a certain clearance to retrieve it.

The Director splits them up.

‘Plisetsky to Moscow. Katsuki, Babicheva, and Altin to London,’ Mila reads off the mission file. ‘Churchy, you’re in luck.’ She slaps the file into Leo’s chest. ‘It’s your mom’s birthday, right?’

Leo’s eyes brighten. ‘I got my vacation?’ He grins. ‘Hell yeah.’ He claps his hands once. ‘I’m gonna bring you back so much food, you’re going to turn into balloons. Have fun with—’

‘—the 0-8-4,’ Mila finishes, and beams. ‘How could we not?’

Yuri snags the file out of Leo’s hands and scowls. ‘Fuck this, really? An ambassador? With Level 4s? Lame.’

‘Hey, I’m Level 4!’ Leo complains.

Yuri slowly rolls his eyes at him, and with a voice dripping in saccharine sweetness, says, ‘I know.’

Yuuri nudges him hard, for that, but Leo wisely shuts up, and the confrontation is resolved.

‘How come you get to go find an 0-8-4 and I’m stuck with some smelly old man?’ Yuri protests instead, jabbing at Yuuri. ‘And I have to go back to _Moscow,_ do you know how much that stinks? Like a pile of hot shit, that’s how much.’ He launches himself into an office chair in an epic sulk.

Yuuri considers it. ‘It’s probably because the Director trusts you,’ he suggests hesitantly. ‘And that you know where you’re going. How to get around in case something goes wrong. And you have extra training, too.’

Yuri childishly points at Mila. ‘Then why isn’t she going, too?’

‘Because Otabek and I are incompetent on our own?’ Yuuri offers.

‘Hey!’ Yuri protests, sitting up like a rocket. ‘Otabek is more competent than all of you combined!’

‘Thanks,’ Otabek says dryly, leaning in the doorframe.

‘So it’s settled. I’m going to help Yuuri.’ Mila winks at Yuuri. ‘I think the Director’s right. You can handle a smelly old man, and if you hurry back in time, you can help us with the tail end of our mission. How’s that sound?’

Yuri, despite being a twenty-year-old man, storms out, grumbling but placated by the offer. ‘See you bitches in London,’ he threatens, and disappears.

~

He doesn’t make it that far.

~

Yuuri catches enough bits and pieces of the story in the resulting internal chaos. When they return, the 0-8-4 is pulled out of their hands and set aside for a far more immediate threat: The ambassador is dead, assassinated on his way into a State dinner. His entire escort party, including Yuri, is dead or missing.

‘Missing?’ Yuuri asks blankly. ‘What do you mean, _missing?’_

Mila, pale, folds her hands in front of her face. ‘Missing,’ she repeats. ‘As in disappeared off the face of the planet. Doesn’t that sound familiar to you?’

Yuuri swallows hard.

The theories follow them like ghosts as they congregate together, never leaving each other alone after Otabek comes to dinner with a black eye, bloody knuckles, and his jaw set in a hard line. A plant in the party, or maybe they were just careless, or maybe they were made from the very beginning. To get Yuri, the assassin had to be an alien, a super soldier, or maybe just a really lucky set of snipers.

Then they find Yuri barely alive. _Only_ Yuri. The news spreads like wildfire around SHIELD once the rescue plane arrives with the agent clinging to life with his stubborn fingernails. The entire agency seems to turn against all of the Soviet-born members at once.

‘It was Plisetsky,’ Yuuri hears someone mutter as he keeps his head down, unnoticed when he wants to be (and sometimes when he does not). ‘Must have tipped them off.’

‘Hey,’ Mila snaps, and Yuuri glances over to see her up in the agent’s face, her eyes cold and hard as steel. ‘You shut your whore mouth. He’s one of our own.’

The agent looks like he’s gearing up to slap her, but quickly thinks better of it and backs off. ‘We’re well aware of that. Fucking commies.’ He spits at her feet and walks away.

‘Cowards,’ Yuuri murmurs, approaching her. She’s shaking. ‘Mila. Make them trust us, remember?’

She squeezes her eyes shut, her fists clenched at her side. ‘All Yuri did for them and for SHIELD, and that’s how he gets repaid?’ she hisses. ‘It’s Viktor all over again.’

Yuuri flinches violently at that, letting her go.

‘That’s just our lot,’ she says, pushing him away. ‘Fuck. Fuck. I need to go cool down.’ And she disappears, just like that.

~

Yuuri is there when Yuri is out of surgery, his torso wrapped in pristine white bandages and his face white as a sheet. Yuri hisses like an angry cat at the nurse who tries to pull the blanket up over his chest, frowning with confusion at the wrappings that go up far past the bullet wound to just under his collarbones. She leaves him alone after that and he yanks the blanket up to his neck, wincing at the pull against his sore muscles and the hole in his side.

‘Fuck off, Katsudon,’ he says eloquently. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

And of course Yuri doesn’t want to talk about it. No agent of Yuri’s calibre ever wants to talk about failure. _Yuuri_ doesn’t want to talk about failure. But there’s an unsettled look in his eyes, a haunted cast to the razor-sharp blue that locks onto Yuuri and stays there. _Wait,_ it says, right before Yuri glances at the window on the hospital room door. _Wait._

And Yuuri trusts him just a little bit more than everyone else, just as Yuri has always trusted him a little bit more than everyone else, too. Yuri is surly and never completely grew out of his hot temper. But Yuri trusts him with his identity, which is more than Yuuri thinks Yuri has ever given anyone, save maybe Mila. And Viktor.

_Viktor._

Yuuri gets it suddenly, what that look means, and then his knees feel like they’ve been blown out and he fights the urge to reach out for something to steady himself. Yuri turns away then, scowling at nothing and no one and adjusting his wrappings under the blanket as the door opens. Yuuri glances over as Director Carter herself pushes inside alone.

‘Agent Katsuki, I must speak with Agent Plisetsky alone,’ she says softly, but firmly.

Yuuri looks at Yuri, panicked.

‘With all due respect, Director, this is Katsuki’s mission too,’ Yuri says gruffly, pushing himself up to glare heavily at both of them. Carter’s expression flickers before she reaches behind her to lock the door.

‘Very well. Stop pacing, Katsuki,’ Carter instructs, and Yuuri obeys with a snap.

Yuri sets his jaw and glares at nothing for a moment, his fingers curled into claws and embedded in the cot.

‘They came at us the way we thought they would,’ Yuri says, still boring a hole in the wall. ‘Basic shit-’ he glances at Carter for a moment, like he’s not sure if he’s supposed to apologise or not even though he’s probably never apologised for being profane in his life, but then he seems to remember that Carter went to war and she’s probably heard far worse. He pushes on. ‘Predictable. And we were fine. The team was fine. They weren't. Everything according to plan, and the ambassador was perfectly safe. He wasn't even scared, the _придурок._ ’ Yuri swallows. ‘And then they start going radio silent. One after the other. And I know what that means. I watched once.’ He looks back at her. ‘From the other side. They wanted to show us what The Asset could do.’

Carter looks grave. ‘The Winter Soldier?’

Yuri scoffs. ‘Stupid name. But yeah, that’s what I thought, too.’ He shifts and hisses. ‘Bastard shot the ambassador through me. _Through me._ Didn't give a fuck if he killed me, because that’s not his mission. The mission was to kill the ambassador and he did.’ Yuri’s voice cracks a little. ‘And he just _looked_ at me, bleeding on the floor, and I was-’ He swallows. ‘I don't hesitate to kill. Ever. But I looked at him and he looked at me and I couldn't fucking shoot him. It wasn't the Asset. Not like I could have killed the fucking Asset anyways.’

Yuuri feels the blood out of his face, drained away from him in one go.

‘How did you know?’ Carter presses.

‘How the fuck do you think I know?’ Yuri snaps. Then belatedly, at the no-nonsense look on her face, he adds a meek, ‘Ma’am.’ A breath. ‘I remember the Asset. Dark hair, square jaw. He spoke two words, maybe, but his Russian was foreign. Raw on his tongue.’ Yuri swallows. ‘This one I knew better. KGB. He trained me in the Red Room, don't you remember? When I was still… He was kind to me, which was really fucking stupid of him because it made me soft.’ He spits the word like it’s an insult. ‘Director, I’d recognise that stupid silver hair a mile away.’

Yuuri feels numb to his toes. He knows that Viktor. The one who loves so openly that Yuuri can almost see hearts in his eyes. The one who earnestly tries to learn Japanese even though he’s hopeless, the one who sets his elbow on Yuuri’s shoulder in public like a lifelong friend but who hangs off of him like an overgrown monkey in their little apartment. Who layers sweet kisses over his skin and says the silliest things about all of Yuuri’s moles and scars and birthmarks, who curls up around Yuuri when they sleep and nuzzles into his hair and whispers sappy things in Russian as the sunlight streams in through the curtains.

Who goes outside and flips a switch when his country asks him to, the same way Yuuri’s parents flipped their switches when Japan asked them to. Who crafted Victor Freeman from scratch, who transforms his voice with the perfect Californian accent, who plays the sweet, Westernised version himself so accurately that the Americans don't notice when he pulls the information out of them with honeyed words and a bright smile.

Who showed Yuuri, once, out alone in the woods, how he never, ever, misses a shot.

(Who tricked even him. Who never spoke of his involvement with SHIELD, the way Yuuri has never spoken a word of it to Phichit and his family.)

‘Viktor,’ Yuuri whispers.

‘Nikiforov?’ Carter presses. ‘Plisetsky, I need you to be sure.’

Yuri’s face crumples. ‘His eyes, Director. They were so empty. There was nothing there.’ His knuckles are white. ‘They made him into the Asset.’

Yuuri sinks into a chair.

~

Yuuri knocks impatiently on Carter’s office door even after she’s seen him standing there, he’s so keyed-up. She nods to admit him and he moves inside, the door clicking solidly behind him. He dips into a quick, respectful bow and notes that she doesn’t quirk a smile this time, like she usually does.

She’s scared, then.

‘Director Carter, I request that you place me on this mission.’

Carter shakes her head. ‘Agent Katsuki. Yuuri. You know I can’t do that.’

Yuuri makes a frustrated noise and follows her as she walks. ‘Director, Agent Plisetsky and I are the agents most qualified to go after him. And I know you think it’s dangerous or that I’m compromised.’ He takes a breath. ‘And maybe I am, but it doesn’t mean that I’ll be hindered in my task. I’m prepared to take all steps necessary to ensure that this never happens again.’

Carter sighs and folds her hands in front of her mouth. ‘I admire your resolve, Yuuri. But you have to understand that it’s not a question of your competence. You’ve already proven that numerous times, just as Agent Plisetsky has proved his. It’s whether or not you will be more vulnerable to attack. We will do what is necessary to stop the Winter Soldier, but I will not sacrifice the lives of my agents to do so.’

‘I know Viktor,’ Yuuri presses. ‘I know him better than I know myself. His mannerisms, his habits, his– his weaknesses. What Yuri said, he’s– he’s not himself. They’ve done something to him.’ His voice wavers a little. ‘He would have come home four years ago if they hadn’t. With all due respect, Director, your other agents won’t know how to get to him.’

‘Yuuri–’

‘You don’t want to _kill_ him, do you?’ Dammit, his voice is rising in pitch. ‘Because he’s innocent. I’ll bet my life on it. He’s a victim, a prisoner, and the goal is always to get our prisoners back if possible, right?’

‘You’re correct,’ Carter says, but he notices the hesitation in her voice.

‘It’s possible,’ Yuuri insists. ‘Let me do it. Send Yuri with me when he’s healed. You know he does it quickly. I don’t need much, I’ve been preparing for this for years and I’m ready–’

‘Agent Katsuki, my decision is final,’ she says firmly, and he falls silent. Hot, furious tears blur in his eyes, but he knows the rules. He’s lived by rules his entire life. So he bows one more time and goes, his hands clenched at his sides.

‘She told you no, didn’t she?’ Yuri asks when Yuuri finally comes back. Yuri’s sitting up just fine now, dressed in his snug uniform and perched in one of the chairs like a bird. ‘I could have told you that it wasn’t going to work.’

‘I know it wasn’t going to work!’ Yuuri shouts at him, his vision blurry. ‘People don’t _listen_ to me! They look right through me like I’m _nothing!_ At least she sees me, but she has no faith in me! Do you know how hard it is, when no one, not even you, trusts you to do anything?’

Yuri, taken aback, says nothing.

Yuuri grits his teeth and paces, half-baked plans swirling through his head like smoke. Intangible. No substance to them. He paces and paces until his breathing has settled and his vision is free of tears again, hot embarrassment shooting through him like lead.

After a moment, Yuri looks at him strangely before he smiles, his face splintering into a wide grin. ‘You’re going anyways, aren’t you?’ He shakes his head. ‘Fucking idiot.’

‘Do you have a better idea?’ Yuuri retorts.

‘Nope,’ Yuri says cheerfully. ‘That’s why I’m dragging your sorry ass around with me, assigned or not.’ His expression hardens. ‘Turns out I might need you fuckers after all.’

Yuuri blinks at him. ‘I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Yuri pointedly doesn’t look at Yuuri’s face. ‘It’s probably the drugs.’

~

One mission becomes two, then three, then fifteen, and suddenly three months have passed in a rapid flash of failure. Poland, Denmark, France, West Germany, Spain; the borders start to blur together. It gets to a point where Director Carter can’t keep Yuuri off the missions without endangering more people, because, loathe as Yuuri himself is able to admit, he’s become a top agent. Combat has gone from being something he’s learning to something he’s teaching. Hand-to-hand comes easier than breathing, especially if he has a knife on his body.

And he knows how to defuse bombs, which seem to be a particularly touchy subject these days.

They’re chasing a ghost, the five of them, picking up the bodies left in his wake. Things start to fit together: Unexplained disappearances, missions gone horribly wrong with no reason for why, objects of interest long gone before the agents arrive. Everything comes into suspect, especially those that ended with a bullet and an unknown sniper vanishing like smoke.

When he comes back to the Hub after another failed mission—three dead in an apparent suicide to protect information (Yuuri knows better. All five of them do)—he splits off from them and lingers behind. In the empty halls, he steals his way to the monument erected by the doors, skipping over seals and letters until he finds what he wants. Alone, he runs his fingers over the name etched into the Wall of Valor.

_Agent V. Nikiforov_

‘ _Я буду следовать за тобой куда угодно,_ ’ Yuuri murmurs. ‘Until the day I die, when all hope is gone.’ He chuckles dryly. ‘I swore I’d drag you back across the ocean if I had to, didn’t I?’

The Wall, of course, says nothing.

He catches Yuri watching him as he turns back, his expression unreadable, but he vanishes before Yuuri can say a word.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

It's hard, some days, when all he has to do is r e  a   c    h for the memories; to simply grasp them between his fingers of flesh and blood and tug them back into place. But ice must coat every image, voice, and feeling, for no matter how mighty his grip, each slips easily from his grasp like

b

  u

     t

      t

      e

      r

      .


	4. Sleep of the Blest

The mission comes for them in the early hours of the morning: There’s a bomb of unknown origin and technology set to blow in the streets of Paris. The mission is for Yuuri, which means that the mission is for all of them.

They’re in the city before the sun sets, their government aircraft kicking up gravel when it touches down. As they do, Yuuri stares out the window, drinking in the sight of a Parisian evening while he does a quick inventory of all of his equipment. Viktor used to talk about the city like he’d been a thousand times before.

‘ _I’ll take you there someday. Deep into the Louvre, down into the depths of the catacombs, up on top of the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs-Élysées… then we’ll sit on the grass beneath the Eiffel Tower and picnic on fine cheeses and wine. And when it’s dark,_ lubov moya, _I will kiss you sweetly, because in Paris, our brand of love is quite normal.’_

‘It’s too quiet,’ Otabek murmurs, breaking Yuuri out of his thoughts. ‘Are we too late?’

Yuuri glances towards the tops of the buildings with a sense of foreboding. Everything about this rings with wrong, wrong, wrong… like they missed their chance again.

He’s being taunted. Or maybe this is all a lie, a cruel trick to string him along. He’s been dancing across thin ice, and when he hold out his hand to the man he thinks will be there, there is no one at all to catch him as he falls.

‘Breathe, idiot,’ Yuri snaps, and Yuuri sucks in a breath. ‘I know this trick.’ Yuri scrapes the toe of his boot along the pavement, eyes narrowed to slits. ‘They’re not here yet,’ he announces after a moment, a slow grin spreading on his face. ‘It’s a setup. A reception. We beat them.’

They exchange a look between them, one that says _about fucking time_ and _thank god_ and _hurry up, then!_ before Yuuri adjusts his grip on his equipment and they sprint for the car, Leo sliding confidently behind the steering wheel while the other four pile in.

‘Go!’ Yuuri urges, and they go, racing down the Paris streets in a bid for time. The timer’s ticking down in their heads, laughing in Yuuri’s face. Get to the mission. There are lives at stake, countless lives and futures.

‘ _Incredible,’ Viktor murmurs, pressing his ear to Yuuri chest. ‘This thing right here. I’ve never heard anything like it.’_

_Yuuri’s blush rolls up his face in full force. ‘Stop it.’_

_‘Never,’ Viktor declares, rubbing his cheek against Yuuri’s shirt. ‘Not when you’re hiding something so beautiful beneath your skin.’_

Then the car jolts, slamming Yuuri into the seat in front of him. He hears Mila’s gun clatter to the floor as the glass shatters and Leo swears, trying to keep control of the car. Yuuri catches a glint of silver before Mila recovers and aims her pistol at the ceiling, firing at the assailant.

‘No!’ Yuuri gasps, but it doesn't matter; Leo slams on the brakes hard enough to send the attacker tumbling off the roof of the car. Stunned, Yuuri watches him roll across the asphalt, silver hair glinting in the sunlight.

Everything’s slowed down, like the world has been dumped into a vat of honey and left to drown there. Yuuri can barely breathe, barely think. His hand moves towards the door at half-speed, fighting against the instinct that whispers so sweetly for him to stay there, curl up in a ball, and wait for this to be over.

‘Get down!’ Yuri screeches, shoving Yuuri behind the seat by the top of his head. A stream of bullets shatters the windshield just as he says it and Mila swears viciously before she and Otabek kick their way out of the car, returning the fire. The gunfire is enough to spur Yuuri to action, as it always is; he scrambles for his pistol until it’s warm in his grasp before he tumbles out of the car, pressing himself to the metal until the bullets pause. Somewhere in the background, Mila is shouting for people to get out of the way: _‘Bouge de là! Rapidement, bouge de là!’_ Then he dares to look.

The first thing Yuuri notices are how dull his eyes look. He remembers glittering seaglass, sharp enough to cut but smooth enough to shine. Or maybe just the ocean itself, wild and tumultuous and beckoning for Yuuri to drown himself in it. But Viktor’s eyes are muddy, glazed, empty; there’s none of that mischievous sparkle. It reminds Yuuri of the time Viktor caught the flu and spent a week with the covers drawn up to his dripping nose, feverish and clingy and worryingly sentimental. And then his hair. Shaggier, messier, with no pomade in sight to slick his overlong fringe out of his face. Dirty, like it hasn’t been washed in ages. Spots of dried blood marring the silvery sheen. And he’s too skinny. Layered with muscle Yuuri doesn’t remember, yes, but his waist is pinched, his cheeks too hollow.

Stupidly, Yuuri’s first thought is that an extra large helping of katsudon would fix that. The second is that—

He’s staring down the barrel of a gun, held by the thing wearing Viktor’s face all wrong, but the Soldier doesn’t fire. They stare at each other, agent and weapon, for far too long. He hasn’t shot me yet, Yuuri thinks dully. Why hasn’t he fired?

‘Viktor,’ he murmurs, and the Soldier starts. It’s enough of a distraction for Otabek to fire a round at him and the Soldier staggers with a gasp, pressing his gloved hand to his arm and pulling it away bloody. He immediately returns the fire with a second pistol and Otabek ducks for cover.

‘Hey,’ Yuri hisses, smacking Yuuri with the flat of his palm. ‘Focus, Katsudon. You can’t be compromised. A mission is a mission, and we have to complete it.’ His voice wavers.

Yuuri takes a shaky breath and tears his eyes away from the Soldier. He does a quick checkover of his equipment—nothing too damaged, good—and pulls Yuri’s pistol from his holster.

‘Hey!’ Yuri squawks again as Yuuri sprints, but he doesn’t follow. There are more attackers now, and Yuuri runs, dodging bullets and sparing no glances for the Soldier, no matter how much it hurts him.

There are only two things that matter now: SHIELD’s mission, and his own.

The decision is made easy when he catches Mila up ahead, her hand pressed into her shoulder and her face turning white from the blood loss, and the Soldier with his gun trained mercilessly at her head. Yuuri doesn’t think; he just changes course, catching the Soldier’s eyes before Yuuri rams into his side, taking both of them down. Yuuri’s gun clatters out of his grip, but there’s no time to mourn the loss; just enough to slash a knife at the Soldier’s hand, forcing him to drop his own, and then it’s a fight.

Yuuri would be dead in a heartbeat if this was anyone else. The first blow feels less like a punch and more like a metal brick to the stomach, but as he staggers back he dodges the slash of a knife that comes out of nowhere. The Soldier’s blows are surprisingly (though perhaps not) predictable and Yuuri parrys them with the ease of familiarity, slipping into an old dance of fists and heels and knees. Except this isn’t a game, anymore; the Soldier’s eyes glint with blank (programmed, Yuuri realises) rage and hatred. He intends to kill, and so Yuuri reluctantly responds with the same intensity. It is less blocking and more dodging, because every one of the Soldier’s blows feels like it was given by ten men, and already, Yuuri is tiring.

The Soldier knows. In two quick moves, he disarms Yuuri and shoves him back against the railing of the bridge by the throat. The air punches out of his lungs, but with it comes the name.

_‘Viktor.’_

The Soldier pauses in his assault, eyes narrowed. ‘That’s not my name,’ he snarls with Viktor’s voice, harsh and cold.

Yuuri smiles at him. ‘Then what is your name?’

* * *

 The agent is fast. Admirably so. He dodges the Soldier’s blows with uncanny accuracy, and though the Soldier manages to land one every now and then, this man is proving more trouble than he’s worth. But like all men, he tires quickly, and the Soldier seizes his chance: He smacks the knife out of the agent’s hand and catches him around the throat, ramming him into the railing of the bridge with the intention of breaking his spine. Not hard enough, though; the agent is still holding his own weight, fingertips digging into the Soldier’s grip as he gasps the name from before.

‘ _Viktor.’_

That name makes hot emotion flood the Soldier’s veins like gasoline. This is something new; he is used to rage and hatred, has colour-coded them red and orange in his mind, but the feeling soaking into his bones is something he has no name for. But his body—this machine that has been carefully crafted for him, free of imperfections and weaknesses—shudders at the feeling of it. It wants more. It wants the agent to say it again, and only this agent… which doesn’t make sense.

‘That’s not my name,’ he says. He wonders if this agent can detect the hesitation in it. He must, because he smiles, his breaths shallow and hoarse as they struggle past the Soldier’s grasp.

_‘Then what is your name?’_

_What is your name?_

_Who are you?_

It makes his head hurt, those questions. Headaches are rust on the gears of his machine. They impair the mission, which is to stop these agents by whatever means necessary.

(Kill them.)

(Kill _him._ )

But this agent knows something, and the Soldier has a duty to find out what it is before he tosses him out into the river. Something tells him to stop, something embedded deep within him that begs and cries like a child, scraping at his ribs and digging its persistent fingers into his flesh. At a sudden, unprecedented loss, the Soldier does not throw the agent into the river; he tosses him to the pavement instead.

With a sharp crack, the agent cries out in pain. The thing inside of the Soldier pulls him into a full-body wince, ripping control away from him. _Help him,_ the thing begs. _Save him._

 _Saving the target is not conducive to the mission,_ the Soldier argues, and the thing bangs its fists against his ribs again with sharp jabs.

 _Save him,_ it demands again.

 _Why?_ the Soldier asks. And for that, the thing has no answer.

Something’s broken in the agent’s body, but he struggles to his feet anyways, a new knife in his hands. The Soldier is mildly impressed.

‘Viktor,’ the agent repeats. The thing inside of the Soldier glows. ‘Viktor, look at me.’ He takes a step, gritting his teeth. His knuckles are white.

The Soldier looks. He sees something in those eyes, the thick black hair that falls across them, the cracked glasses resting on his face. There is something there, something that makes the thing in his chest pound harder against his ribs. _Come on!_ it screeches. _Look at him!_

The Soldier cannot bring himself to raise his arm to stab him.

‘You know me,’ the agent pleads, and there’s that rage, boiling over. The Soldier swipes at him, snarling, and the agent ducks, gaining enough momentum to kick the blade out of the Soldier’s hand. It skitters across the pavement. But the agent does not try to attack; the knife in his own grip hangs loosely at his side. ‘Remember with me, please. It was cloudy, the day we met.’

The Soldier hesitates.

‘It had just stopped raining. You came into my family’s restaurant to dry off and get something hot to eat; it didn’t matter where it came from, so long as it was edible and warm enough to stop you shivering. You were used to snow, not all that rain.’ The agent chuckles hoarsely. ‘I wasn’t working there, then, just visiting and chatting. I had a job in the city, working in admissions for international students at the university. I said you looked like a drowned puppy. Sometimes I say things without thinking. You were so offended.’ The agent steps closer. The Soldier does not step back.  ‘You liked my mother’s katsudon. You said it was the food of the gods. I’ve never seen someone eat a bowl so quickly. Or my _ka-chan_ so happy.’ Another step. The agent’s cheeks are wet, his eyes dripping moisture. The Soldier does not think it is entirely because of the pain. ‘Don’t you remember me, Vitya?’

_Vitya._

_Vitya, the little blonde girl whispers in the night, her wrist chained to the bedframe but her eyes glinting with the kind of cleverness that says she can get herself out of it anytime she wants to. Vitya, tell me about the war._

The Soldier punches the agent. The agent falls with a sharp exhale, sprawled on the ground with a hand pressed to his cheek. It’s swelling and growing red before the Soldier’s eyes.

‘Your name,’ the agent gasps, ‘is Viktor Vasilievich Nikiforov.’

The Soldier freezes.

‘You were born in Leningrad,’ the agent presses. ‘You were a KGB agent, a government spy, based in San Francisco. You were the best of them. They praised you as a hero. Then you defected, you-’ the agent takes a shuddering breath. ‘You joined SHIELD, you were a double agent, playing both sides.’

‘You’re lying,’ the Soldier insists, because that is the only explanation that makes sense.

The agent smiles, pain lacing the stretch of his mouth. ‘I’m telling the truth.’ He takes another shaky breath. ‘Because I did it with you. I taught you how to code-break, remember? I started teaching you Japanese. And you taught me how to fight.’ His fingers loosen on the knife. He lets go of it, lets it slide out of his fingers. So many knives. ‘A bit of Russian, too. I know little things.’ He takes a breath. _‘Помнишь, когда мы танцевали за занавесками? Когда вы поцеловали меня в первый раз? я помню. Я знаю.’_

_Remember when we danced behind the curtains? When you kissed me the first time? I remember. I know._

‘Shut up,’ the Soldier screams, but it comes out as a whisper. The thing is grasping at his throat, dragging it shut, and in retaliation, the Soldier grabs the agent by the collar, rearing up to shut him up by force, but the agent just looks so… fragile, suddenly.

‘Come on, Vitya,’ the agent murmurs. ‘It’s me, Yuuri.’

That name. It’s a double blow to the chest, a rearing kick from the thing inside him that threatens to shatter his bones and bring him to his knees. The Soldier marvels at that: A name more interesting than the one this agent claims is his. Lies, lies, they’re all lies, but the inner brat doesn't seem to think so. Treacherous thing.

 _He’s telling the truth!_ the thing screeches. _Listen, you imbecile, you made a promise. You swore on your life._

 _I made no such promise,_ the Soldier argues. The agent gasps as the Soldier bends him over the railing, keeping him from falling only with the tight grip of his fist. _Promises are not conducive to the mission._

 _Listen,_ the thing says, and its words reverberate through the Soldier’s entire body. The Soldier shudders. _It’s him. He’s the one. You made a promise to him, remember? He is life, and he is love, and you have forgotten him._

The Soldier tightens his grip.

_Love?_

‘Viktor,’ the agent—Yuuri—says. His hands fall away from the Soldier’s arms. ‘I won't fight you. You’re my mission. The only mission that matters.’ Yuuri searches the Soldier’s face, looking for something and not finding it. ‘Have I failed it?’

 _Yes, idiot,_ the Soldier says.

 _No, you didn't, I’m here, Yuuri, you found me, Yuuri, please—_ the thing screams.

‘I…’ the Soldier manages.

Yuuri closes his eyes. ‘ _Я буду следовать за тобой куда угодно,’_ he says with great conviction.

Then the Soldier’s world is no longer stable and rubble is flying through the air, pelting him on all sides with searing hot metal and leather. Yuuri slips from his fingers and falls, a hand outstretched to the Soldier and eyes wide with fear as he hits the water.

_I’ll follow you anywhere._

* * *

 

**_And the Prince in tears dissolving_ **

**_Threw himself upon the coffin..._ **

**_And it broke! The maiden straight_ **

**_Came to life, sat up, in great_ **

**_Wonder looked about and yawning_ **

**_As she set her bed see-sawing_ **

**_Said with pretty arms outstretched:_ **

**_"Gracious me! How long I've slept!"_ **

 

The Soldier is no more.

* * *

The water is cold. Unbearably cold.

A stupid thing to think, but Yuuri’s head is full of thoughts. The sentimental part thinks this: Viktor needs to eat more. Sleep more, too. Someone needs to rub the tension out of his shoulders and shove a pile of ciphers and puzzles in front of him to distract him. Yuuri hopes that someone will rub out the crease between his eyes. That someone will make him katsudon and get him to smile again.

Then these four years wouldn’t have been wasted.

The other part of him, the rational, newly-patriotic Yuuri, the one who wholeheartedly agrees with SHIELD’s mission and the lives they are meant to save, hopes with all of his heart and soul that his bomb defusing equipment hasn’t been destroyed on the street, that Leo or Yuri will see it and complete the mission.

Yuuri’s mission is over now. He is tired, so, so tired, and he can’t move his arm to swim without intense, biting pain shooting all the way up to his skull. It seems better to let the river sweep him away, him and all of this debris.

Except that there is a hand reaching for him, wide seaglass eyes and silver hair, grabbing for his uninjured arm and tugging him up to the surface. He mouths something; Yuuri isn’t quite sure what it is. But the pure, unadulterated fear in those eyes is enough.

The Soldier does not feel fear.

Yuuri gasps for air on the surface, coughing up dirty Seine water while Viktor keeps his head out of the river.

‘Yuuri,’ Viktor says, and it is the sun emerging from behind the clouds, the stars on a clear night, a hot mug of tea after the rain.

‘Viktor,’ Yuuri chokes.

Viktor hauls them up onto the cobblestones of the riverbank, collapsing beside Yuuri. Then he rolls over and heaves, retching violently while Yuuri catches his breath, his entire body screaming with pain from the cold and the bruises and the fracture in his arm.

‘Oh my god,’ he says to no one in particular. Then Viktor’s arms are around him, jarring his broken arm in the tight, terrified squeeze, but that, painful though it is, is nothing compared to the feeling of home that Yuuri has been chasing for years.

‘I swore on my life I wouldn’t hurt you,’ Viktor moans. ‘And I did it anyways. How can I forgive myself? How can you ever forgive me?’

Yuuri clutches at him. ‘It wasn’t you,’ he insists, and repeats it. ‘It wasn’t you, it wasn’t you, I swear, you’re back, you’re here, it’s you, there’s nothing to forgive, Viktor, _Я буду следовать за тобой куда угодно, Я люблю тебя_ —’

「大好きだよ、」Viktor says back, his eyes wide. ‘ _Я люблю тебя,_ I love you, Yuuri, Yuuri—’

Here they are, ripped to pieces and put back together again, kicked and beaten and broken and dripping with river water and crying, crying, crying. Yuuri wraps his uninjured arm around Viktor and Viktor shudders with it all, weeping into Yuuri’s neck and gripping him hard enough to leave bruises.

Yuuri is ecstatic. His ghost is flesh and blood once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at [russianfeya.tumblr.com](http://russianfeya.tumblr.com)!


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